The New And Improved "Way Above Top Secret"

Just a suggestion for ties... A tiebreaker. Flip a coin, pick straws, pull names out of a hat, close your eyes and point. At least that way a person
could be recognized every month. And perhaps the other equal earners could have an "Honorable Mention" title for a month. Or nothing at all.

Is this all your flags divided by the number of posts you made or all teh flags for that month? Because this seems open to abuse to me. I am sure a
member can easily make 15 to 20 threads a week, each which is able to get 3 flags. If one of these is decent he can get 10+ and bam... someone wins
WATS and he has spammed the forum.

But one member gets 50 flags on one thread and gets nothing...when he has probably given more to the site.

Basically I think the complaint can be distilled as with the new system if a member never starts a topic then said member could never be up for WATS.
Said member could bat 1000 in every reply post that the member ever made and and the very universe could engulf the member in an aura of celestial
light of greatness.

Yet said member despite obvious and overwelming evidence of deserving the coveted WATS or WATS for the Year (is that still around?) would never be
elligible because under the new system the member has zero flags for starting a topic. Or worse, the perfect poster started a thread that fell flat
for whatever reason.

A rose by any other name...maybe the complaint stems from the perception that WATS has changed from Top Post of the Month to Top Thread Starter of the
Month. The new star system gives a little member recognising member contribution but has its own flaws as well. While both flags and WATS votes still
are member opinion, the uses and meanings have difference.

Change is well, change. Yes, I am one of those people that see neither half full nor half empty but say half a glass of water. Time will tell if the
flagging system works and meets with community acceptance. So long as everyone doesn't take the "my way or the highway" stance, I think the change
can be weathered. Worse comes to worse another change might break down to WATS-Topic and WATS-Poster.

Well crud, having two awards per month would just make it more complex to get a fair and acurate report. But it might put to rest the perception of
the change of WATS.

Can someone please explain exactly what the flagging system is for now?

1) To flag threads that are of high interest

or

2) To vote for the thead starter for WATS

If 1, I will continue to flag like I normally would. If 2, I have to seriously rethink the way I flag.

If it is sending votes for WATS, then I will more than likely not flag at all any more. 99% of the time, I'm flagging threads because of the comments
made in the thread. Not because of the initial post, or initial poster had such a high quality post that it deserved the WATS award.

I guess it would make more sense to me to give out two awards then. MIATS - Most Interesting Above Top Secert counted by number of flags.

The other WATS given by the updated star system. Where each person can give one star to a good post. Who ever has the most stars wins the award. I
know I give out stars for quality and really contributes to the topic at hand. I thought that was what the WATS award stood for. That would also
insure to include the high quality posters who only and/or mostly like to respond to others.

[sarcasm]I nominate the "Post Reply" button, as it's had by far the most hits on the entire site.[/sarcasm]

In all seriousness though, I think the WATS should go three ways this month. The Three Amigos deserve it more than anyone else I think. I believe this
simply because they have put more heart into making this site so livable in the past month than anyone that I know. True, it would have been fine
without all of the upgrades, and no, they didn't have to do them, but that's what makes them stand out from the rest of the crowd.

That's a great point Borg. No one has put in the amount of effort to make this place actually function as much as the 3 Amigos...Although the mods
have been on alert for a while with all the recent hoaxters, as well as Dave Rabbit and Johnny Anonymous starting up the mix...

Excellent start to the summer, I hope to see more improvements to come

.

P.S. Whoever revamped the myats page, congrats

. Nicely done and I hope it doesn't strain your mysqrl database too much...No more up to the
second updates, right? So there shouldn't be many crashes...

Although, every once and a while when I click on my 'back' button in my web browser I will get the "ATS is down for repairs" page. Then once I
click refresh it comes back online.

I don't know if that is a serverside or clientside error, just wanted to let you guys know in case there is a problem.

Now that depends on whether I'm quoting or not. If I choose not to quote, and click the "Post Reply" button at the bottom of the thread, and type
my message up, I have to hit the "Post Reply" button a second time to get it to post. So, in truth, there's a twofer for ya!!

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